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Really, any two Lotus cars made before 2005 qualify for a hell project. But a rough Esprit and a rougher Europa? Hades on earth!

As we saw in last week's episode of Project Car Hell, totally absurd projects can be exquisitely hellish. But we're car guys here in the Hell Garage, and you can't be a true car guy unless you consider -- if only for a brief, crazed moment -- life with a Lotus daily driver. No, we don't mean a boring, Toyota-engined Elise, because everybody has one of those. We're talking about a real Lotus, the kind that shows your deep commitment to Colin Chapman's philosophy of building super-fragile cars that disintegrate under real-world use like sugar cubes in boiling water … wait, we mean cars that take advantage of genuine racing technology!

While you can find Malaise Era Elites and Eclats in allegedly restorable condition for cheap, the Hell Garage Demons feel that those cars just aren't interesting enough. So, they've dug a little deeper in the List of Craig and found a couple of serious Lotus projects for your eternal torment.

A breadvan Lotus in Puerto Rico. What could possibly go wrong?

The original Lotus Europa was built in very small quantities from 1966 through 1975, and it made the Triumph Spitfire and Fiat 124 Spider seem like lumbering hippopotamuses by comparison. Even the diminutive MG Midget weighed more than most versions of Chapman's fiberglass-bodied sports car, which meant that the high-revving Renault or Ford four-cylinder engine behind the driver was plenty of power.

The main problem with these cars (other than the unobtainium parts and Lucas electrics) was that they tended to get thrashed most cruelly on the race track and/or crunched on the street by drunks piloting primered-out Pontiac Executive wagons. These days, most of the Europas you'll find are obsessively restored trailer queens … or hopeless challenging basket cases diamonds in the rough.

Naturally, this being Project Car Hell, we're looking at the latter type of Europa, and we've found a really choice one: this 1970 Europa in Puerto Rico (go here if the listing disappears). The good news about this car is that fiberglass can't rust! The bad news is that the steel components under the fiberglass can rust, and Puerto Rico's muggy climate may have been unkind to those bits.

All we know about this car other than what's apparent in the three grainy photographs is that the seller won't ship it, and "necessita ser restaurado" (needs to be restored). From the photos, we can see that it has most of the glass, some trim pieces, and -- based on the way it's sitting -- an engine (or maybe some sacks of concrete) in the back. Hey, a reasonably complete Europa for $4,500 is worth traveling to the Caribbean for!

"Everything just needs to be hooked up." How hard could it be?

During the dirty-moneyheyday of the late 1980s, the high-flyers without any imagination went for Porsche 928s and Ferrari Mondials when it came time to do some consumption of the conspicuous variety. But let's say it's 1988, you just arranged a lucrative "dead horses for dead cows" loan deal, and you've got enough money left over from your cocaine budget to buy a new car. You'd like something British, but the Jaguar XJS is just too stodgy and the Sterling is a joke -- that leaves the Lotus Esprit!

Mid-engined, with 160 horsepower out of a very nervous iteration of the "torqueless wonder" 900-series engine, and with a body packed full of every manic wing, vent, and spoiler a bored 12-year-old doodling in history class could imagine, the Esprit screamed "white-collar criminal!" "success!" Naturally, these cars led tough lives, and it's not so easy to find a good one today.

Fortunately, we're not looking for easy projects, so instead we've found this 1988 Lotus Esprit (go here if the listing disappears) in Texas… oh, wait a minute, it's really an '89 Esprit (go (go here if the listing disappears). Yes, two Craigslist ads featuring the same car, with two different model years and tantalizingly vague descriptions in each.

The key may be found in these two sentences: "I just dropped the motor in and had the head and piston and cylinders replaced. Everything needs to hooked up and ran."

What does the seller mean here? Don't worry! It'll be fine! For $8,500, a genuine Esprit with "upgraded spoiler and mirrors" could be yours, and that's what matters.